Infosys scouts for buyouts in new business segments, Europe

Infosys Technologies, with a cash chest of nearly Rs 17,000 crore, is eyeing acquisitions that could help tap more clients and grow in new business lines and spread its footprint into Europe. Vivek Sinha reports. The shopping so far

Infosys Technologies, with a cash chest of nearly Rs 17,000 crore, is eyeing acquisitions that could help tap more clients and grow in new business lines and spread its footprint into Europe.

The company, traditionally conservative in acquisitions, plans to develop its "products, platforms and solutions" business that currently contributes a little over 8% to its total revenues and lies at the bottom among its other service offerings.

"Business operations" involving conventional project work accounts for 60% of the revenues, "consulting and system integration" around 32%, and "products, platform and solutions" - which includes licensed industry-specific software and emerging areas such as "cloud computing" done over the Internet, 8%.

Infosys is striving to make all three have equal share.

"Traditionally we eyed acquisitions to develop consulting capabilities and now that we have built consulting capabilities we are looking at acquisitions for products, platform and solutions space and for country penetration such as across continental Europe," SD Shibulal, Infosys new CEO who took over last month from S "Kris" Gopalakrishnan, told HT.

This would increase the company's potential client base, he said.

Without giving further details, he said the company is always eyeing companies that could be a "strategic fit" for Infosys.

"I feel the company's move to increase revenue share from products, platforms and solutions is in sync with market trends," said Arup Roy, analyst at industry research firm Gartner.

North America now accounts for 64% of Infosys' revenues and Europe a little more than 21%.